


Been There, Done That

by Jwash



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Carmilla hates the Swiss., F/F, Fluff, Holiday planning, Minor Angst, maybe? - Freeform, pre-season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-24
Updated: 2015-09-24
Packaged: 2018-04-23 06:14:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4866098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jwash/pseuds/Jwash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laura wants to go abroad and see the world (or at least the more affordable cities of Europe), but Carmilla has literally seen it all before. How can Laura convince her to see it all again?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Been There, Done That

Carmilla lay slouched in the corner chair, watching Laura over the top of her book, eyes narrowed in suspicion. Her diminutive girlfriend had been sat on her bed, leafing through the Thomson's Travel Catalogue for the past few minutes in such a cursory and nonchalant way, it was obvious she wanted to raise a topic. It was as though she was passive-aggressively trying to start a conversation with her. Carmilla flicked her eyes back to her page (a _Varney the Vampire_ anthology, just to show she still liked a laugh now and then) and pretended not to be interested. She refused to give Laura the satisfaction of making her curious enough to ask.

“We ought to go travelling,” said Laura, abruptly and decisively, as though they were already buying tickets.

“Why? Aren't you busy here?” Carmilla replied, trying to sound surprised.

“Yeah, but it might be nice to get away for a while,” she said, opening the catalogue to a random page which randomly happened to have a corner folded down to mark it. “Everyone else is travelling. Danny's going on tour with the Summers to Lipari, Perry and Laf are talking about going to Amsterdam, I thought it might be nice if we went away too. Together.”

Carmilla sat up slowly from her usual slouch, her mouth drawn into a flat smile. “Away to where? Any ideas?”

She cast a pointed look at the catalogue, which flustered Laura for a moment.

“Paris, maybe?” she said, pointing to the page. “Flights are pretty cheap. Or we could get an interrail ticket for the overnight train. You're always saying how much you like Paris.”

Carmilla frowned, but gently, so Laura knew it wasn't her fault. “I _adored_ Paris. It was the most beautiful city in the world, but I wouldn't go now if you paid me.”

“Okay, so, we can get flights for- what?”

“ _Past tense_ , Laura,” Carmilla said, her voice thick and smug. “Paris now is a... a tawdry replica, cashing in on past greatness.”

Laura looked faintly hurt, as Carmilla tried to explain herself.

“Look, you can't understand what it was like. No city could hold a candle to Paris when I knew it. New York was still a muddy hole, and London was a city for greengrocers and bankers, but _Paris_... Ah, all Europe flowed into Paris. It's culture, it's _people_. Even that wretched elephant couldn't ruin it. Every night was a new play, a new opera, back when that _meant_ something. Bright eyed students spoke of liberty and equality, and didn't know that it was beyond their reach. A wrong word in a coffee house and you could start a riot,” she paused and chuckled. “I remember, once, in the 13 th arrondissement, there used to be a house full of these wannabe Byrons, all out of their skulls on absinthe and opium, and we...”

She caught herself. Laura was smiling at her, but the smile was wilting at the corners. Carmilla looked away, glancing back into her copy of _Varney_.

“Point is, I wouldn't give a plastic Eiffel Tower souvenir for the whole place now,” she finished quickly.

“Well, okay, what about... London. We can go on the Eurostar, see Kings Cross. They even put a luggage trolley half-inside one of the columns on Station 9! And there's a production of _Othello_ at the Globe, too!”

“London's a soulless shell, bought out years ago,” Carmilla said, her nose wrinkling, as though London were an unwashed body. “I remember it when it was full of all that Imperialist arrogance and hypocrisy, swaggering Guards holding hands coyly with members of Parliament, running off for a quick tumble in Hyde Park. I remember the dirty deals under the eaves of St Paul's. Now, it's been bought out. None of that soul is left, none of that heart. Anyway, the South Bank building gives me headaches just looking at it.”

“...We could try Krakow,” Laura tried again. “The hotels are _crazy_ cheap, and it looks like your kind of city.”

Carmilla groaned. “Mother made us take a trip to Poland in 1721, and it was one of the worst experiences of my life. We went for a week, then one thing led to another, and we ended up staying for nineteen years. If I so much as smell Borsch again, I swear I will hurl or kill.”

“Geneva? Bern? Switzerland is nice this time of year.”

Carmilla snorted, biting her lip to hold back laughter. “Sorry. No, I couldn't. I couldn't keep a straight face.”

Laura frowned. “What's so funny about Switzerland?”

Carmilla shook her head. “You had to be there. Anyway, the Swiss are all impolite and speak French with a terrible accent.”

“Berlin?”

“Not even Voltaire could make that city interesting. It's always been the spinster sister of Europe. And the Cold War wasn't kind to it either. The Reichstag still has bullet holes, for heaven's sake.”

Laura sighed and closed the catalogue.

“I mean, that's not to say we _couldn't_ go,” Carmilla added, trying to sound conciliatory. She sat on the bed beside Laura. “Just that... you know. You might be disappointed.”

Laura didn't reply. She didn't even look Carmilla in the eyes.

“Oh don't sulk,” she said. “Look, I don't mind where we go. Anywhere you want. Anywhere.”

Laura turned to face Carmilla. Her mouth was set in a serious line, but her eyes were soft, contemplative.

“When I was ten, we went on holiday to Croatia, and it rained the whole time. Torrential, unseasonal rain for a whole week,” she smiled and shrugged. “My dad wouldn't let me anywhere near the beach, let alone near the sea. Said it was too dangerous. We ended up going around the Split Archaeological Museum and the Coatian Maritime Museum in silence, then standing under the eaves of a building eating wet ice-cream. And... I had fun. It was a nice holiday, we had a nice time. I thought that was a fun holiday.”

Carmilla nodded meekly, aware a dressing-down was in progress. _Yeah, yeah, smack my hand_ , she thought, _grumpy vampire being too grumpy_.

“I'm not trying to be confrontational,” Carmilla said. “I'm just saying.”

“That's not what I mean” said Laura. “It's just, when you've done all this stuff I could never do, seen all these places I could never see...”

Carmilla smiled and put an arm around Laura's slumped shoulders.

“What, and you think I hold that against you? That you're not three-hundred-and-change years old?”

“No, I just wonder, what could I ever do for you? You _know_ so much more, you've _done_ so much more. And I'm just... some naïve provincial girl who thinks a wet holiday on the Adriatic is a good time.”

Laura sniffed and bit her lip. Carmilla leaned in to rest her head on Laura's shoulder, and draped her arms around Laura in a loose hug, trying to console her. _Of course she would_ , she thought, _of course she'd get nervous._ You spend so much time alone with 300-odd years of memories, you forget what that means to someone who'll live for maybe a fifth of that time.

“Look, don't worry about what you can do for me,” Carmilla said, softly, giving Laura what she hoped was a reassuring squeeze. Calming reassurance wasn't her speciality, she felt so out of her depth. “You don't need to turn your love into some kind of presentation, to show me and the world how much you love me. It isn't anything you've done, or could do for me. You... you strike a chord in me, like no one and nothing else, and that's all I need. For you to be you.”

“But I mean, everything you've experienced... I can't compare to that, can I? I wouldn't know the first thing about 18th century Paris, or what Bach sounded like on opening night. I'm just... well, I'm not much different to the next girl.”

“Well, maybe,” Carmilla said, pausing maybe a second too long. “But that doesn't matter. I don't care that you've hardly been outside Austria, I don't care how much you think you have in common with everyone else. I'm not about to abandon you because you don't think you're special. To me, you are everything, and I would move heaven and earth for you.”

Laura lifted her head a little at that. She wasn't crying, but tears welled up in her eyes.

“I did almost die for you.”

Laura half-chuckled, and wiped her nose. “Yeah, you did.”

“Anyway, you've done one thing I've never done,” Carmilla said. “I've never been to the Croatian Maritime Museum.”

Laura brightened a little. “Really? They have _such_ a good exhibition on piracy in the Adriatic.”

“Maybe we ought to go,” Carmilla said, smiling to see Laura cheered up. ”You could even go swimming this time.”

Laura turned to the page for Croatia and winced as she saw the hotel listings. “Maybe as a day trip?”

“I might have some relatives who can help us out,” Carmilla said. “The Vukoviches are demi-cousins of mine, I'm sure they'll have some old pile on the coast they won't mind us borrowing for a few days.”

Laura giggled put her arms around Carmilla and held her tight. “You really think so? I mean, you think they'd let us?”

“Yeah. I'm not on bad terms with all my family.”

Laura kissed Carmilla quite suddenly and almost entirely without meaning to, but Carmilla ran her arm around Laura's midriff and kissed her right back, so after a moment of breathless assent, they committed to a kiss together. It took a... a while, certainly before Carmilla drew back, her face maybe an inch from Laura's and grinned. Carmilla's lips pulled back over her teeth, and a casual observer might have noticed that she seemed to have entirely too many and all were too sharp. But of course they were alone.

“It's funny,” Carmilla whispered. “You never complained about my life experience before.”

Laura rolled her eyes and grinned back. “I'm not complaining now.”

And for a moment, not even the sound of the giant distressed anglerfish outside could ruin their moods.


End file.
